Turning out to the annual STUC march – held yesterday in Glasgow – I witnessed thousands of people marching in the pouring rain (and it really was monsoon level) for over three hours, and rallying at the end of it. Watching everyone come into the park at the end, and then watching them keep coming and keep coming and keep coming, til even I got bored and went to find somewhere handy to stand, was immense. I got a bit sentimental.
Something is happening in this country at the moment. Ever since the Sheridan debacle everyone who is casually in favour of the Scottish left has dissed us for not being united, and I think this is pish. I’d rather have honest difference than tactical, artificial unity. But at this point in time there is an honest unity, because people are uniting in the face of a common enemy. This enemy isn’t as simple as David Cameron, it’s the threat that he and his ilk represent – the immense threat to the welfare state and the end of a certain way of life, a certain kind of society: a kind of society which many had started to take for granted, and are now turning out to fight for its continued existence. People in Scotland are no longer deciding what kind of country they want to live in; now they know what kind of country they want to live in.
Independence is broadly being discussed as part of the process of achieving this country, but not the way the SNP talk about independence. For us independence is one possible means to a much more important end – not just the right to choose who runs the country without having to vote tactically against the Tories, but the right to choose what kind of a country we live in, what its priorities are, who it values.
The Scottish left have despaired of finding one party behind which to rally, and instead have banded together without one, building coalitions of resistance, new working groups, community groups, and policy-making units as they went. People have organised sporadically and multifariously, have started taking things into their own hands, have started taking responsibility for what is being imposed on their neighbourhoods (Save the Accord Centre campaign, the Save Otago Lane campaign, the Free Hetherington, earlier the Tripping Up Trump campaign). In the face of an overwhelming, despairing feeling that we cannot do anything in the face of the political power that rains down on us, we have decided we’re damn well going to do something anyway.
And I guess that this is the reason that for the first time in my life really I genuinely feel proud to be part of this entity we call Scotland. Here the nation’s history is being rewritten – people are invoking Red Clydeside, the poll tax riots, the shipbuilder work-in and are relating these things to the current uprising in Scotland, in order to construct an alternative historical narrative. This narrative which is the true story of a people who did not need a political party in order to do something. It is a minor narrative – none of these things changed the world, none of these things stopped the onset of neo-liberal capitalism, and we cannot expect the incredible efforts being expended at the moment to stop neo-liberal capitalism. But these efforts are aimed at slowing the imposition on a people of something it did not vote for, of a way of life to which it does not subscribe – a way of life where the only value is monetary, and where only those who have money are entitled to the support and protection of the state.
Something is happening in this country that hasn’t come from nowhere, and that – if this radical history is any indication – isn’t going away. Scotland, no longer proud of its part in the British Empire, of its stake in British wealth and oil, no longer necessarily proud of its industries (although still of its workers) is creating something else to be proud of: a refusal to sit back and watch while the subaltern suffer.
After last weeks multiple days of consecutive rioting, there’s a chance now for some calm, measured discussion on the upheaval that saw the capital and several English cities burn, high streets looted and alleged gangster Mark Duggan shot dead -- with three others killed defending their property. The key word being “chance”, the same way there’s a chance you’ll win the lottery or Michael Bay will decide to stop making movies -- what’s predictably actually happened is talking heads, politicians and newspaper editors have demanded martial law/the death penalty/the return of Maggie Thatcher/Saddam Hussein to crush the thousands of young people who live in the shadows among us waiting to strike again like a Tottenham based Vietcong.
One Newspaper has demanded the return of national service, safe in the knowledge that teaching thousands of young rioters basic firearms skills would have no possible down sides. Other newspaper polls have asked if Blackberry messager should be banned -- following in the footsteps of other strongmen leaders who thought cracking down on people communicating would solve all their problems. If the responses on how to stop the riots again have been a bit daft it’s nothing compared to what some folk have blamed the riots on. David Cameron predictably said the riots were down to “sheer criminality” -- but why didn’t all these criminals strike earlier if their only motive was theft? Looters obviously took advantage of clashes with the police to go out and get a new telly, but what was it they took advantage of? More on that later. Historian David Starkey has blamed the riots on rap music and black culture in general, saying white folk have become black, like Michael Jackson in reverse with less moonwalking and more firebombing. The BBC have obviously went straight for the insider voices into why urban black youth in London might riot, by asking the 66 year old Royal Family historian from Kendal his views. Continuing this new line of reporting, BBC Four have asked Tinchy Strider to front a 4 part series on the Tudors.
But the BBC didn’t just ask old bigots like Starkey why the riots started -- they did ask a black man as well, fulfilling their broadcasting guidelines. Except when they interviewed Darcus Howe about why the riots started, and he gave a response that didn’t blame BBM/Jeremy Kyle/Welfare State/Ali G In Da House, but said people might be angry cos a man was shot dead and the police lied about the circumstances the interviewer didn’t like it too much and accused him of being a rioter. It’s all part of a concerted effort by the press and politicians to make people stop thinking, and instead accept that people rioted because they’re animals -- literally “feral youth” as the BBC described them.
So how did the riots start? On the 5th of August Mark Duggan was followed in a taxi cab by armed members of the Metropolitan Police. After what was claimed to be a shoot out, Duggan was shot dead by the Met. After his death his family and friends started a protest demanding answers about his killing. When a 16 year old girl approached police lines, in accordance with the Met’s community engagement agenda, she was beaten with batons. The combination of Duggan’s killing and police thuggery at the demo sparked an uprising from young people in different parts of London against the police. Outnumbered and caught by surprise, the police were forced to retreat and leave parts of the city in the hands of rioters. Like any spontaneous riot, unlike a planned insurrection once you force the police out people take advantage of having no authority at all. That can range from drinking in the street, to stealing new pairs of trainers, to mugging folk. And if you’ve grown up on the broo with no hope of employment -- 54 people chase every job going in Hackney -- getting all the consumer kicks you’re supposed to have is much easier to do when there’s no polis around.
More information then came out about Duggan’s death -- that the bullet in a police radio was in fact “police issue”, and that the IPCC “may have misled” the public about how he was killed, stating there was no evidence he fired a weapon the police claimed they found at the scene. By the time this information came out the riots were in full swing and it probably would not have made much more of a difference -- but it did confirm the unaired suspicions of thousands of black and asian youth in London, that the police had lied about the circumstances of Duggan’s death. The bullet in the police radio is especially fishy -- while Met police have an itchy trigger finger, they’re just about clever enough to avoid shooting each other. Could the Met have killed Duggan illegally, and then put a bullet into a radio to make it look like he had responded? It’s a very cynical thought, almost like believing they’d be in cahoots with a major newspaper to cover up massive phone hacking scandals.
After three days of consecutive rioting -- which had spread from London to Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Liverpool, Manchester, Salford -- the combined weight of thousands of extra polis/nothing good left to loot brought the riots to an end. After a rather unpleasant shock, the legal system has responded with draconian sentences against rioters -- one guy was sent to jail for 6 months, for stealing bottled water. Another woman was sentenced to 5 months for accepting goods that were stolen, not actually stealing them herself (better avoid that guy round the Barras with the new Planet of the Apes DVD eh?). Under any other circumstances these people would be let off with a caution for shoplifting, or at worst a fine. Now they stand to face jail time and a criminal record for petty crimes which did far less damage to society than what the legal system is doing to them and their families. Alongside these sentences for theft others have even got jail time for just for swearing at the police -- and one guy’s even been sent down for four years just for a facebook event.
The reason there’s been such a massive crackdown is that the establishment is desperate to ensure a riot on the scale of last week never happens again. But they’re at a permanent disadvantage in that they don’t know why the riots started, and they don’t want to know why -- that’s why the media has asked everyone from aging home counties historians to Tory cabinet ministers about why they think people are rioting -- people they have about as much knowledge of or link to as they do with martians. Nowhere has the media tried the most simple and obvious way of determining why people rioted -- actually asking the young folk in these cities. Where the BBC have done it, it’s been at best a soundbite -- but it’s a soundbite that’s worth more than the endless hours of droning from talking heads. Two young girls from London spelled things out pretty clearly -- folk rioted because they wanted to show the police and the rich they could do what they want. No one in the media or the political establishment is prepared to engage with that argument because they live in a bubble where they can’t fathom why people would be angry at the rich or the police -- so they create lots of alternative explanations like blaming rap or BBM for rioting.
actual reason folk rioted above
There’s plenty of poor areas in the UK that didn’t riot though -- Alex Salmond has been at pains to remind the BBC these riots aren’t UK wide, there was no looting anywhere in Scotland despite the Scottish Polis’ efforts to invent some. And some of the poorest constituencies in the whole UK are in Scotland. So are riots just down to poverty? The answer is no, riots don’t just happen when communities are poor -- they happen when they’re poor and are under attack, or have suffered an injustice. In Britain and the USA this injustice is generally police brutality motivated by racism -- like the Rodney King case, the murder of a grandmother that sparked the 1981 riots and now the police killing of Mark Duggan. This -- and not black or “gangster” culture -- is why riots have taken off.
These riots are also happening at the biggest pillars of authority in British society are collapsing -- the banks have stolen from everyone and are now getting paid off, with the wages of nurses, teachers, carers and the benefit claims of the disabled. Instead of being prosecuted bankers still receive bonuses larger than most young people will earn in their entire lifetime. The MP’s who are calling for strict prosecution of the rioters are thieves that make last weeks looters look like angels in comparison -- Tory Minister Michael Gove, who lost his temper when Harriet Harman argued cuts were behind the riots, has stolen £7k from the public purse to do up his house. When he was caught out, he simply repaid the money. Will folk who say they want to riot on facebook get let off if they delete the page? No, they’ll get four years. The forces trying to crush the riots -- the Met -- have also been exposed as massively corrupt, with backhanders taken from News International in exchange for covering up phone hacking. This is as well as being able to kill with impunity -- there’s been over 300 police deaths in custody, but not one single conviction.
That’s the problem with saying all that’s necessary to stop the riots is law and order -- there’s virtually no law or order when it comes to regulating the abuses and crimes of those at the top of society. The corrupt political establishment don’t care about the communities that rioted, either because they think they’ll always vote for them no matter what (Labour) or because they’ll never vote for them (Tories). During the boom years of British capitalism, these poor areas of London were left to rot because the rich demanded cheap labour. Now that the same rich have destroyed the economy these areas which have nothing are being asked to pay up with money they don’t have -- weeks before the riots, massive cuts to Haringey’s youth budget was announced. People who say the riots are mindless have got it massively wrong -- people are now at least talking about why these areas have been abandoned. A few weeks ago they’d never make the headlines. Riots are the one desperate way to grab attention from people who have access to no other means of political power. If you want to avoid riots in the future you can’t keep demanding “order” but have no order in the economy, society, or politics which allows 50% of young people in many parts of London to be unemployed -- otherwise people will find their own ways of striking back whether you think it’s healthy or not.
Big Ben was burned to the ground last week by protesters angry about the coalition government’s plans to sell off all of England’s publicly owned woodland. Unfortunately, it was just a model – this time, at least.
The government proposes to sell all of the Forestry Commission owned land in England. That’s 650,000 acres of land, including 20,000 hectares of ancient woodland… nearly 20% of all of England’s wooded land.
At the time of writing this article, more than 129,000 people have signed a petition against the plans, and there have been rallies and protests across England – most notably at the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, where 3000 protesters pledged to defend the people’s trees, culminating in a Wickerman-esque effigy burning as a sign of their seriousness and how far they’re willing to take their defence campaign.
In May, David Cameron declared that he wanted to coalition to be the “greenest government ever”. Indeed, the Conservative party logo is a tree. And yet they’re more than happy to sell off one of England’s most vital assets to the highest bidder, to do with what they will. Who needs oxygen producing trees and diverse eco-systems when you can have retail parks and office suites?
Forestry is a devolved issue – meaning that the parliament in Westminster gets has no say over what happens to Scotland’s forests – which is why it is only the land that the Forestry Commission own in England which is to be sold at the moment.
But the Scottish Government are slightly behind Westminster’s schedule when it comes to announcing cuts, and there is a great deal of pressure on Holyrood to conform to the cuts agenda. Scottish Environment Minister Roseanne Cunningham made a statement a few months ago denying any plans to sell off Scotland’s forests, which is definitely a positive step in terms of defending our woodlands against any future attacks.
However, many would see forests and woodlands as an easy target for cuts compared to rowdy students and benefits claimants – which is why it’s more important than ever that the anti-cuts movement is vocal in opposition to all cuts.
Our forests are just as important an asset for the future as education and public services, and we need to prepared to stand up and say so.
As the Lib Dems prepare for their first election – a by-election in Oldham – since they jumped in bed wi the Tories, it’s looking likely that not only will they not be able to win the seat, but they will be crushed at the polls. Even David Cameron has felt some sympathy for the poor Lib Dems and says the Tories aren’t really trying to win the by-election – a bit like when your dad gives in to your shit tackles when you’re wee to let you win.
In fact Labour will almost certainly win back this seat, and with a much increased majority. There doesn’t appear to be any dent at all in Labour’s support, despite the fact that “Red” Ed Miliband picked the racist chancer Phil Woolas to be his Shadow Immigration Minister while he was under investigation by the courts.
Even worse for the Lib Dems is that their vote in Oldham – which will collapse – will be far higher than the national average that the Lib Dems are currently polling at, a measly 7%. Since selling his soul to the Tories Nick Clegg has transformed from a messiah figure to the most hated man in Britain.
In fact the collapse in the Lib Dems vote has been so massive, even the Taliban in Afghanistan currently have more support than the Lib Dems – despite Mullah Omar’s controversial stances on gay marriage, stem cell research, international jihad and the flying of kites. Approximately 9% of the Afghan public support the Taliban taking over again – and more worryingly for Nato – 27% of Afghans support attacks on Nato soldiers occupying the country.
That’s a massive section of public support, and it’s even worse when the insurgents are fighting from impenetrable mountain territory basically doing the same thing they’ve done on and off for the past couple of hundred years – repel any and all attempts to invade and occupy them.
Both polls should be wake up calls to the people who run the UK; in Afghanistan the occupation of the country by the British and American military is actually helping build support for arguably the most mental and repressive group o folk on the planet – while at the same time the second party of Government in the UK has less support than these same crazies because of their sellouts.
"We want to look over those proposals for PR again Mr Duncan Smith"
And remember Lib Dems this is before you actually put a million folk on the dole and cut public services worse than Thatcher. Wi these kind of poll ratings though the Condem coalition is very weak and with enough resolve the anti-cuts movement can force out the Government before we see the Lib Dems vote collapse even further – which is admittedly a bit of a shame.
The government have taken yet more measures to ConDem (geddit?!) the nation’s children to a life of poverty and misery.
Funding for Bookstart, which provides a free pack of books to every baby in the UK in order to “inspire, stimulate and create a love of reading that will give children a flying start in life”, is to be completely axed.
The organisation provides free books for children from the age of nine months until their first term of high school.
They began as a pilot project in 1992 but were awarded government funding in 2004 to become universal. Despite having previously offered to take a 20% funding cut, Bookstart were recently told they were to lose 100% of their £13m-a-year government grant, meaning the free books will end when the current contract does, in April.
Viv Bird, Chief Executive of Bookstart described being “astounded and appalled” on hearing the decision, saying:
“There was no dialogue. It was completely devastating.”
However, in the 10 days since the decision was announced, there have been messages of support and protest from a number of famous writers, including the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, who said:
Support for Bookstart is support for the dreams and imaginations and futures of British children. To withdraw that support is to behave like Scrooge at his worst. Here’s hoping the powers-that-be see the light in tiime, as he did.
Duffy’s sentiments were echoed by previous Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion:
The decision to scrap Bookstart is an act of gross cultural vandalism. For the last 20-odd years the scheme has successfully introduced an enormous number of young people to both the pleasure and the necessity of reading and has been of tremendous benefit in the drive towards literacy. Very well organised, and very well run by Booktrust, it has become a national institution, and the envy of the world.The savings made by its abolition will be negligible; the damage done will be immense.
Renowned author Ian McEwan joined the chorus of support for Bookstart, saying:
I’m appalled to hear that Bookstart is for the chop and I’m counting on Michael Gove to reconsider. This modestly funded, truly civilised scheme has brought to millions of kids benefits far beyond the calculations of politicians. Who knows what seeds have been planted in young minds? It’s by initiatives like this that we hope to measure ourselves as a mature and thoughtful society. A U-turn on this would be an honourable choice.
But it’s Philip Pullman who spoke about Bookstart most beautifully:
It’s like seeing someone smashing aside a butterfly with the back of their hand: wanton destruction. Sheer stupid vandalism, like smashing champagne bottles as a drunken undergraduate. It doesn’t matter: someone else will clear it up. Well, if you miss the first years of a child’s development, nothing can clear it up. It’s gone. It won’t happen. A whole generation will lose out.
Bookstart is one of the most imaginative and generous schemes ever conceived. To put a gift of books into the hands of newborn children and their parents is to help open the door into the great treasury of reading, which is the inheritance of every one of us, and the only road to improvement and development and intellectual delight in every field of life.
Without access to literature, how can we be surprised when literacy levels are so low? In a world where many children start high school barely able to read and a child’s horror and confusion at receiving books for Christmas becomes an internet meme, we need a government that will encourage and nurture children, not abolish their chances in life to save a few pennies.
And yet in June, he spent £303,006 of our money on a four day trip to Canada. £303,006 on travel, food and accommodation in FOUR DAYS? Perhaps part of the massive cost was the insanely environmentally un-friendly private jet he chartered for him and his mates…
The figures also include a list of presents received by Cameron, Clegg and Co.
Just for fun, let’s see what they all got in the period May-July 2010.
Cameron was given jewellery, bowls and boxes, tennis racquets and wine, whisky, books, hampers, an iPad, a wallhanging, a pen set, leather goods, ties, more jewellery, a clock, a painting, another iPad, and two rugs.
When the Budget was announced this Summer, one facet of the backlash came from women’s rights campaigning group The Fawcett Society, who initiated a legal challenge against the Budget, on the grounds that it was unfair to women, who would bear the brunt of the majority of the cuts.
As we reported at the time, a gender audit of the budget showed that more than 70% of the revenue raised from direct tax and benefit changes would come from female taxpayers.This audit was initiated by the opposition, and took place only after the budget had been announced.
The Treasury are legally obliged to carry out a pre-budget audit to check any disproportionate impact on women, ethnic minorities , LGBT and disabled people. But they didn’t.
Theresa May, InEqualities Minister, even wrote to the Chancellor at them time warning him about the necessity of these audits (not to protect communities in need, of course – but to prevent them from suing the government).
This week, the Fawcett women were finally allowed to present their case in an initial hearing. A high court judge heard that the budget cuts were having a “grossly disproportionate and devastating” impact on women, as the group sought a declaration that the government had acted unlawfully by formulating the budget without paying due regard to gender equality laws.
Despite the government admitting that they hadn’t carried out any assessment on how the budget might unduly affect women, and that these assessments should have taken place, the judge dismissed the case, calling it “unarguable and academic”.
Well, alright then. So long as the Con Dems are willing to say that they ‘regret’ breaking the law and fucking over women (and potentially many other under represented groups), they can just do what they like? Thanks for clearing that up for us, Lord Fuckface.
But as well as the royal fucking over that we’re getting from the government this week, they’re also going to make it much easier for our employers to fuck us over, too. Yay!
Plans to force companies to disclose how much they pay men and women, and therefore embarrass them into paying women a fair wage, are to be scrapped. Instead, companies will be gently encouraged to narrow the pay gap – one of the worst in Europe – you know, if they can be bothered.
SSY apologises for the sweary word in the title, but the above quote was taken from a panicky (hard to say which one tbh) Polis at the demo against tuition fees today arguing wi fellow officers over who was responsible for the titanic fuck up that was the vague attempt at maintaining control over streets in Glasgow.
And what a fuck up; hundreds of school, college and university students had more or less total control of the entire city centre. The demonstration was free at will to blockade/shut down 3 different vodafones, 2 banks and break out of no less than FIVE kettles over a period of roughly 3-4 hours. This is despite the Polis presence going from a few confused officers to 5 riot vans and a helicopter, a bit like in GTA when you keep going on a continuous rampage and they send the swat team and the army after you.
When the Polis got reinforcements, they tried to force folk into a kettle to “Join your colleagues” – I’m not daft, I’m not walking into a kettle – a couple of teenage girls who were taking pictures of the demo didn’t want to go in and were violently pushed and manhandled by the cops. Fortunately they got their story taken from the Herald, so lets hope there’s an embarrassing story waiting for some of Strathy’s finest tommorow.
Today’s demo stands as an example that Millbank wasn’t a one off, and that there’s nothing the French or Greek can do that we can’t do as well. Seeing these demonstrations it’s clear the Lib Dems will need nothing less than a full scale military escort the next time they want to court student votes on campuses, that is if they even bother next time.
Unfortunately despite today’s massive protests, the numbers on the streets were unable to terrify enough Libdem MP’s into openly rebelling agains the Coalition’s plan. Tuition fees have been introduced into England on 323 votes to 302 – 21 Libdems voted against the proposal, while 8 abstained. If these MP’s had any bottle they would have kept to their pledge and voted against. Obviously they think that abstaining will spare them from losing their seats. Think again.
Tuition fees may have been increased in England, but they have not been introduced Scotland or Wales. What we’ve had a is very effective dress rehearsal for fighting any attempt (which is likely) to introduce tuition fees into Scottish education, and making it clear to the next Holyrood administration the political consequences of doing so. It’s also politicised thousands of young people – who would have imagined this time last year that hundreds of school kids would give the Polis some exercise bolting down Argyle Street to try to shutdown tax evaders Vodafone?
We didn’t succeed in stopping tuition fees from being increased, but student protests have cut down the government’s majority from 84 to only 21 – if this is the kind of blood that students alone can draw, what happens when the coalition tries to put a million workers on the dole? This coalition is over its head and today shows we have a far better chance of destroying it than we previously imagined.
Camilla is shocked at the terrible revolting students.
Porter perfects his 'Mullaband' contemplative face for the future.
Mind when the media took it upon themselves to decide that Diana was “the people’s princess” even though she had just as little to do with us untitled scum as the rest of them? Well, Aaron Porter would do well to remember that just because the media treat you like you’re King of the Students doesn’t make it so.
NUS has been basically an irrelevance for many students for a long time now, with the closest a lot of us get to them being flashing an NUS extra card in a shop. Others (including me) attend institutions where the student population has repeatedly rejected having NUS organise on campus, because they’re basically useless to us and in some cases would actually be detrimental to student organisation, as well as food and drink prices in unions. Given that, perhaps it was inevitable that when a real crisis happened, the NUS would be no help at all.
In his tenure as NUS president, Porter has abandoned the idea of free education and proposed a graduate tax, attacked those who occupied Millbank as a “tiny minority” who apparently weren’t ‘real’ students (whatever that means), and then, in a desperate attempt to claw back some credibility and power after the movement ran away from him, was forced into a humiliating admission of “spineless dithering” on his part. I’d propose that that statement was the most truthful and relevant thing Porter’s said during this entire attack on students all across the UK, because the latest move from NUS has again been to push for lobbying of MPs, and to reject the UK wide demo on vote day in favour of their own candlelit vigil by the Thames. Oh, and we should all spend the day lobbying our MPs instead to tell them just how mistaken they are about fees increases.
There’s two problems here. First, the idea of lobbying, with specific reference to the NUS call to lobby Lib Dem MPs. The thing about this approach is that it largely depends on the belief that MPs simply haven’t thought through the consequences that fee rises and cuts will have for young people who’re seeking education. The idea of free education has been under attack for years, with further attacks on the idea that the arts are worth studying at all, and thinly disguised snobbery towards any institution that’s not an ’ancient’ university. These attacks don’t come out of politicians being misguided, it’s part of a concerted agenda to privatise education, delimit what is worthy of study (and what is worth studying is what’s immediately valuable to UK capitalism) and further turn educational institutions into cash machines that are basically closed to people without money, much like the US. This isn’t some mistake, it’s a mission. There might well be a significant number of MPs who will vote against this week’s bill, due to personal convictions or political expediency, but the amount of them who will truly believe that education should be free at the point of demand and genuinely accessible, and who wont buy into the limiting of what people can study, will unfortunately be much smaller.
So, given that it’s not just about one bill, and not just about some Lib Dem betrayal (many of us aren’t surprised at all, because a generally social democratic, pro capitalist party like them were always going to run into a bit of cognitive dissonance when they actually got power, and were never going to take long to drop the policies that appeal to young people and students) then it’s more than fair to say that lobbying MPs is not going to solve this. This is a long term fight to stop education cuts, and to preserve the rights of people who aren’t of the upper classes to get an education without jumping through scholarship hoops, so this repeated rejection of big demos and focus on lobbying days that NUS champion just isn’t going to cut it as a strategy.
Some people find it perplexing that an organisation called the National Union of Students can be so utterly out of tune with the way the wind’s blowing among the people they wish to represent. However, we need to take into account that an NUS position is a classic career move for those who want a job in politics, particularly people who are dying to become a Labour MP. Aaron Porter stood as an independent for the NUS presidency, but is in fact a Labour member. After talking to Porter on the Daily Politics Show, Andrew Neil probably got it dead on when he said “I think I was talking to a future MP there!”. If Porter wants a career as an MP, he’s going to have to play the game and avoid rattling any cages, and that basically rules out doing anything that will actually make any difference, or make people feel a sense of cohesion, power and optimism.
So, we get useless shite like a candelit vigil, an idea which has unfortunately spread to some individual student representative councils, for example Glasgow uni’s. Candelit vigils are usually held to mourn something that’s already happened, or something happening that is outside of our power to change because we are removed from it. That is not the case here, and apart from anything else, asking people to stand quietly and hold a fuckin candle while this vote happens is a great way to demotivate everyone. I wont be trekking to Edinburgh to melt a bit of wax, and I doubt the NUS demo will pull many folk away from Parliament Square either, no matter how many pleas they put out.
Porter is guilty of a massive dereliction of duty as a student representative, and I’ve outlined why. He has no interest in following the wishes of most students across the UK, because it doesn’t fit his political and personal interests. The campaign against cuts and fees has officially run away from NUS, and they’ve nobody to blame but themselves. Students of all stripes, and future students too, don’t want a king, they want a voice, and unfortunately from Porter’s point of view, they’ve found it themselves.
This week, the Coalition government will face its first major test as it attempts to rush its proposals for the future of Higher Education funding in England – the tripling tuition fees from their current level – through the House of Commons. Huge pressure is coming to bear on Liberal Democrat MPs – nearly all of whom pledged before the election to vote against any increase in fees, and to work to implement a ‘fairer’ alternative. Internal divisions within the party are rife, with a number of high profile figures saying that they intend to vote against their own party.
However… after some superficial dithering last week, it seems that Vince Cable – who is, after all, the architect of the tuition fees proposals – will now vote for it. As will, we can assume, the rest of the Lib Dems in the Cabinet, with Nick Clegg revealing at the weekend that he think it’s actually “quite socially progressive” (oh, and all these protests are scaring poor kids away from uni). Far too much is at stake for the party for them not to ensure it’s pushed through Parliament – the prospect of eternal electoral oblivion is surely enough for even the most “principled” of Lib Dem MPs to convince themselves that tuition fees are somehow “fair” (just ask Clegg), and if that doesn’t, then the next three days of backroom deals and intrigue surely will. And let’s face it: even if the vote is narrowly defeated, we know that a watered-down, revised – but equally shit – bill will be passed within months.
But this does not take away anything from the significance of what the bill being defeated would mean. It would be the first crack in the coalition, but more importantly, would be a huge confidence boost to both students and workers across the country. It would vindicate the hundreds of thousands who’ve taken to the streets to protest the fees rise, and set us up for the new year in prime position for taking on the coalition. Above all, though, it has the potential to shape the future of the anti-austerity movement, as the opposition to the first major measure of the government to be put to parliament. Which is why this week’s demonstrations are of vital importance.
Across the country, students this week will occupy, protest and take mass direct action against fees and education cuts. It will be the culmination of just one month of protest that has witnessed the beginnings of a new mass movement. The momentum can’t be allowed to fizzle out no matter which way Thursday’s vote goes, but must continue to strive for free education, and to make links with the broader movement against the cuts. Ultimately, it will be sustained industrial action – economic power that students simply don’t have – that has the potential to bring down the government. At the moment it can seem like the unions are playing catch-up with the student movement – with hurried motions here and there offering support and praise for the lead its taken – but over the past couple of days mechanisms have begun to put in place for a one day public sector general strike in Scotland in the new year.
In Scotland we are facing a much longer battle to save free education. This month’s green paper on the of Higher Education funding – the date of its publication has still to be announced – will present options expected to include a “Graduate Tax” of some description. A review on EMA is also due this month, with fears it may be scrapped entirely in line with England. What happens in Westminster this week though will have a severe impact on Scotland. This is why on Thursday, thousands of us will take to the streets, to offer solidarity to students in England, and to send a message to both Holyrood and Westminster that we won’t stand for the introduction of fees here.
This time last year, discontent, anger and frustration at ‘the system’ could only formulate itself in a confused, social-network driven campaign to get anything-but-X-factor to the top of the charts. This year, disaffection among students and young people has a bigger target – the government, and rather than buying a single as a protest, young people are taking to the streets in their thousands. It’s a sign of how much things have shifted, and long may it continue.
DETAILS OF SCOTTISH DEMONSTRATIONS ON 8TH & 9TH DECEMBER:
Wednesday 8 Dec: Glasgow Uni demo – assemble 12 noon, Main Gate facebook
Strathclyde Uni – 12 noon, McCance Building facebook
Edinburgh demo – assemble 11.30am, Bristo Sq, Edinburgh Uni for march on Parliament facebook
Thursday 9 Dec: Glasgow: school, college & uni strikes – gathering at Buchanan St. 12 noon for a student-led rally & direct action against tax dodgers. See facebook & Glasgow Against Education Cuts blog
Edinburgh: national rally at the Scottish Parliament (called by NUS) – 4.30pm facebook
SSY.org.uk will be aiming to bring you comprehensive coverage of all this week’s protests as they happen – stay tuned!
Turning out to the annual STUC march – held yesterday in Glasgow – I witnessed thousands of people marching in the pouring rain (and it really was monsoon level) for over three hours, and rallying at the end of it. Watching everyone come into the park at the end, and then watching them keep coming and keep coming and keep coming, til even I got bored and went to find somewhere handy to stand, was immense. I got a bit sentimental.
Big Ben was 
The government have taken yet more measures to ConDem (geddit?!) the nation’s children to a life of poverty and misery.
Duffy’s sentiments were echoed by previous Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion:
But it’s Philip Pullman who spoke about Bookstart most beautifully:
When the Budget was announced this Summer, one facet of the backlash came from women’s rights campaigning group 
Well, alright then. So long as the Con Dems are willing to say that they ‘regret’ breaking the law and fucking over women (and potentially many other under represented groups), they can just do what they like? Thanks for clearing that up for us, Lord Fuckface.
SSY apologises for the sweary word in the title, but the above quote was taken from a panicky (hard to say which one tbh) Polis at the demo against tuition fees today arguing wi fellow officers over who was responsible for the titanic fuck up that was the vague attempt at maintaining control over streets in Glasgow.
Entries (RSS)